(edited by ElRazz.1823)
Guardian S-M/S X Build
Don’t use staff. Staff is just bad in PvE fight. It’s an open world lootstick and a nice WvW/sPvP weapons.
Sword is not in a great place right now in PvE, but it’s not a big deal. The problem is that it fit the same role as Mace. They are both usually use as secondary weapon to a GS or Hammer. They isn’t much advantage to take both Sword and Mace. But hey, not a big deal you could use a Sword and Mace build. Just won’t that efficient.
Shield is completely useless. Focus or Torch are thousands times better.
Zeal/Radiance/Virtue would be my choice for the trait line.
For gear, Zerker or Sinister would be both good. You’ll just have to swap some trait.
Why is shield useless?
Direct Damage : Torch and Focus are better than Shield
Condition Damage : Torch is better
Defensive: Focus is better
So what does the shield do better? It give protection, but the guardian can give perma protection to his team if you need it or have a instant cast protection with a shout.
The skill 5 have projectile defense, but the Guardian is already king of that with Wall of Reflection and Shield of Avenger and the skill 5 is the less pratical source of projectile defense of the guardian so no need.
The skill 5 also push back. Which is something the guardian don’t really have outside the shield. But push back is not really useful in PvE, if anything it’s a bad thing because it push enemies outside of your range of attack. In PvP that push back is situational and that’s why some build in some map use the shield.
PvE meta is very strict. If you’re not looking to play the meta builds, then you might as well just pick whatever you want and hope that you don’t find any groups that will care about low DPS.
Why is shield useless?
Becouse besides that KB it is useless.
With focus u can still stack on your ally toon and still protect him with focus(at least he wont take all the damage.
With shield it will root u and thats a bad thing in a game were every one has high mobility gameplay, shield defense is basicly useless and dome time can get borked, for prot on shield 4, nothing beats a guardian with hammer, and the toughness shield gives is also useless, better have focus/torch that makes damage, since it is the only thing that matter in this game.
@ElRazz.1823: pve in this game is so easy u could do it w/o any armor(open world content), just play ful specced for damage only and your will kill your enemies very fast.
(edited by Aeolus.3615)
PvE meta is very strict. If you’re not looking to play the meta builds, then you might as well just pick whatever you want and hope that you don’t find any groups that will care about low DPS.
Try hard are very strict. Good players either change their build a lot through each run to min-max or don’t really care what other people bring because they can solo the dungeon anyway.